Pedestrian access to beaches, playgrounds and other soft terrain areas is often improved with hard-surfaced walkways, especially for people whose mobility is limited by physical handicap or reliance on mobility aids such as canes, crutches, walkers, scooters, or wheelchairs.
Depending on budget, location, or regulation, it is not always possible to install a permanently anchored walkway on a beach, playground, wetland trail, etc. (hereafter “beach”, collectively). Accordingly, semi-permanent walkways surfaced with decking have become popular.
Important considerations for such semi-permanent walkways include the occasional need to modify or add to the original walkway configuration, for example with lateral offshoots, T's, rest platforms, or widened sections. It might also be necessary to remove the walkways for maintenance, whether of the beach or of the walkway structure itself. Flexibility and ease of installation and modification are therefore desirable.
Another important consideration is the structural support provided to the decking material, often vinyl or a similar molded polymer, and the stability of joints between decking sections.
It has been known to use joined sections of vinyl decking for such walkways, temporarily anchored in the sand of the beach. One such prior decking known to have been used for such walkways is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,377 to Yoder, which discloses vinyl planks and sections joined and anchored by clips. This decking structure requires a supporting frame, not always practical in the beach environment, and it is believed that when this decking was used for semi-permanent beach walkways it was anchored to a galvanized steel support channel.
Another prior non-permanent beach walkway is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,294 to Baranowski. This walkway is a flexible, extended, rollable perforated mat wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, but is a more temporary and smaller-scale solution than envisioned in the present application.